Farmers Urged To Practice Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices To Combat Climate Change

By Kenya News Agency

Farmers in Murang’a are encouraged to adopt smart agricultural practices for profitable farming to ensure food safety and security in the country.

Agronomist Francis Mwamba emphasises the importance of soil testing for farmers to determine the nutrients available for their plants and make informed decisions on fertilisers.

“Testing the soil is a must do for any farmer who intends to reap returns in agri-investment because the soil PH majorly determines the nutrients that will be available to the plants,” he states.

“Moreover, testing your soil helps you know the type and amount of food or nutrients available for your plants, and hence you can successfully decide on the fertiliser to use on the soil.

Testing soil helps build soil health, improving crop resistance to pests and diseases.

Some crops that thrive in Murang’a include Pawpaws, mangoes, avocados, and oranges, which can be harvested with a soil PH of 6.0 to 6.5 and varieties that can withstand drought or require round-the-clock irrigation.

“A good soil PH coupled with other right agronomic practices will enable a pawpaw farmer, for example, to harvest 70–150 fruits per tree annually, with each fruit retailing at between Sh50 to Sh100 depending on its size,” he says, adding that “it is paramount for farmers to choose quality seeds for optimum yields.”

The agronomist further advises farmers to make use of agricultural lime as a natural, low-cost way to improve the soil to combat the effects of regular chemical-based fertilisers.

He urges farmers to use compost manure, which, when mixed properly with soil, will release nutrients over time and then leach away into groundwater like other organic matter can do, thus increasing the yields.

Challenges in managing excess water and preventing soil erosion need to be addressed through soil conservation methods and farmer empowerment through climate ecological research.

Rainfall replenished water sources and enhanced soil moisture can potentially benefit crop growth in the long term if managed effectively through sustainable agricultural practices.